


A Coda To A Story That Hasn’t Been Written Yet

by pressdbtwnpages



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2019-01-06 18:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/pressdbtwnpages
Summary: Lee never would have picked Kara for himself, but now that she’s here, it turns out she’s all he ever wanted.





	A Coda To A Story That Hasn’t Been Written Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://pilots-presents.livejournal.com/29107.html).
> 
> Contains canon character-death.

All of Lee’s worries - about the night they met, about the law - disappear when he sees Kara dressed in diaphanous blue so pale as to be almost white. She looks so beautiful, so in love. The greenery in her hair and in her fist suit her somehow making her look more like Artemis than Aphrodite in her wedding dress.

Next to Lee, Zak is beaming back at Kara. They’re so radiantly happy that Lee can’t be anything but happy for them.

He stands by cheerfully, head itching under the flower-and-herb wreaths they’re all wearing as Kara and Zak pledge themselves to each other and doesn’t even hesitate to reply “I do” when the acolyte asks, “And do you Leland accept the rights and responsibilities of this union?”

*

Zak dies and it is so shocking and yet so thoroughly unsurprising that Lee can barely hold himself together, much less consider Kara.

Except that, truthfully, Kara is all Lee can think about. Kara and the vows he made. ‘I do, I do, I do, I do.’ The words beat constantly in his brain.

Lee goes to see his girlfriend. He tells himself it’s for comfort, but in the back of his mind, behind the pulsing vows, _I do, I do,_ he knows it’s to break up with her.

“Lee, you don’t have to do this,” Gianne says, reaching for his hand.

She says, “I know you’re hurting” and “It’s okay if you need to take some time.”

Lee accepts her comfort for awhile, all the time thinking about Kara who is alone right now. Alone and probably drunk. It’s Lee’s responsibility to go to her. ‘I do, I do.’

“Zak was married,” he tells Gianne quietly.

She doesn’t say anything after that.

*

“Lee?” Kara approaches him after the funeral. “We need to talk.”

He hasn’t seen her since the day she married Zak. She looks the same, only sadder.

Lee sighs. “I know. I’m sorry. I needed some time-”

“Your father offered me a position on the Galactica,” Kara interrupts. “I’m taking it.”

Lee blinks. He is too tired to be angry with his dad right now, and even though he barely knows her, he can see the strain in Kara.

“When do you leave?” He asks.

“Next week.”

Lee is surprised. It’s soon, but not as soon as he expected.

“Meet me at the temple on Lau at seventeen-hundred. I’ll make an honest woman out of you.”

“Oh.” Kara tenses. “You don’t have to. There’s not. It’s okay if...”

“I want to. And I think you do, too. Zak did. Want me to keep my vow, that is.”

“I...”

“That’s why I came to dinner that night,” Lee admits. “Zak wanted us to know each other. I think he suspected he might have an accident and he wanted us to be okay with this. More than okay. To have chemistry.”

Kara’s brows furrow. “You’re not saying that he planned this...”

“I am. Not his death, but getting drunk. Tempting us.”

Lee has been doing a lot of thinking since his mom woke him up with that tearful phone call and this is the thing that makes the most sense. Zak had to have known.

“Lee,” Kara reaches out tentatively and touches his arm. “That’s crazy.”

‘Is it?’ Lee wants to ask, but that’s not the real question.

“Does it matter?” He asks instead.

Kara sighs. She looks hollowed out. “I guess not.”

“So will you meet me?”

“Day after tomorrow,” she agrees.

*

“I haven’t done many of these,” the acolyte says while he and Lee wait. Lee doesn’t find it comforting.

“No?” He asks politely. Small talk is better than wondering if Kara will show up.

The man shrugs. “Not a whole lot of husbands without children dying these days. During the war it was more common, but not like the old days.”

“He was my brother and he died ten days ago.”

“Sorry, sir.”

When Kara shows up, she’s in her duty blues. She isn’t glowing; she isn’t even smiling. It’s a marked contrast to the wedding a few months ago. Lee can’t blame Kara. He doesn’t feel much like smiling either.

They repeat the acolyte’s words mechanically and share the cup of wine. Lee tries not to notice that Kara’s eyes shine with unshed tears. Their lips barely brush when it is time to seal their union.

Little as the kiss is, it’s enough to remind Lee of the night they met. His arm tightens around Kara, but she is already pulling away.

Ceremony completed, Lee leaves a donation to the temple and follows Kara into the twilight.

“Have dinner with me?” he asks.

“I have to pack,” Kara says coolly. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Lee is oddly hurt. “I thought you had a week.”

“I changed my mind.”

“But not about this?” Lee gestures to the temple. He isn’t angry; he just doesn’t understand. “You’re hopping on a battlestar tomorrow, but you wanted to do this tonight?”

“It’s the law, Lee,” Kara says, sounding very tired. “Please. I just buried my husband.”

She doesn’t call Zak her real husband, but Lee knows that’s what she meant.

“At least let me bring some takeout by,” Lee asks. “We should break bread together at least once.”

“I have some ale that should probably get finished before I ship out,” Kara allows.

The night is darkening around them, moonlight glinting off of Kara’s hair. Lee glances up.

“It’s a full moon,” he notes absently. Kara winces. “What?”

“Getting married under a full moon is supposed to be lucky.”

Lee snorts. “Lucky us.”

Kara half-smiles. “Follow me back to my place? I think I’ve got some take out menus lying around.”

*

Kara’s apartment is barely recognizable as the home where Lee had dinner a year ago. Belongings broken and whole are strewn everywhere and the place reeks of fresh paint. The giant mandala on the wall explains that.

Zak’s death and Kara’s move explain everything.

“Excuse the mess,” Kara says absently, stepping over a pile of vid discs.

What Lee really wants is to sort them alphabetically and put them back into the shelving that has been shoved violently to a 45-degree angle. Instead, he says, “Yeah, of course. What were you thinking for dinner?”

Kara sinks into her couch and runs a hand through her hair. “I don’t care, Lee. I’m not hungry. It doesn’t matter.”

The rings around her eyes are dark and now that Lee is looking, her bones seem more prominent.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks.

“I had a sandwich on base.”

Lee scoffs.

“I did. Someone bought it from a vending machine and left it on my desk.”

“Did you eat it?” Lee presses.

“I tried. But it was egg salad and lately everything I eat tastes like...” Kara shakes her head. “I can’t.”

Lee sympathizes. Everything he puts in his mouth tastes like ashes. But dying of starvation isn’t what Zak would want for either of them.

“Battlestar food isn’t going to taste any better.”

“I don’t expect it to. But at least it won’t haunt me like everything down here does. Zak is _everywhere_.” Kara’s voice breaks and she raises her hands to hide her tears. 

Light catches the plain silver band she wears on her thumb. The sight makes Lee wince. Tonight is nothing like he had ever imagined his wedding night would be.

He reaches out awkwardly to touch Kara’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

She grabs a tissue and blows her nose. “It isn’t your fault. I’m a mess.”

Lee sighs. “You have every right to be. You just lost your husband and now there’s me and, it’s a stupid law, Kara.”

“It’s meant to keep people safe. The gods wanted us to be loved and protected.”

“Frak the gods!”

Kara’s jaw drops and she looks stricken.

“I’m sorry,” Lee apologizes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re religious.”

She doesn’t say anything, just gets up and walks away. For a moment Lee is frightened that he has done something irreparable and losing Kara now seems like the worst fate imaginable.

In another moment Kara is back, a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other.

“Frak eating, frak talking, lets just drink.”

The alcohol is warm and it burns going down and Lee doesn’t care, can’t care, won’t care about anything but trying to forget, trying to wipe it all away.

“I wonder what would have happened if we’d met first,” Lee says, well into his second glass.

“Nothing.” Kara tells him. “We might have hooked up, but I would have hated you. I still kind of hate you.”

And frak that stings. Lee downs the rest of his drink like a shot. Kara’s hands are steady as she refills his cup.

“What about me?” Kara asks. “Do you like me?”

“Not right now,” Lee answers. Alcohol has punched holes in his mental filter. “I don’t hate you, though. Could never hate you.”

“ _Why_?” Kara asks. She sounds anguished. “I killed your brother! I ruined your life!”

She isn’t even making sense.

“You’re beautiful,” Lee answers. “You’re smart, and funny, and brave. And a good kisser.”

He thinks about it a little bit longer, all of the reasons being married to Kara Thrace isn’t going to be a hardship. “And Zak loved you.”

It might all boil down to that in the end. That Lee never would have picked Kara for himself, but now that she’s here, it turns out she’s all he ever wanted.

“Zak loved you too,” Kara offers softly, sadly. She’s crying again, tears rolling gracefully down her face. She doesn’t seem to notice.

Forgetting suddenly seems like a bad idea. Lee puts down his drink and goes searching for Kara’s takeout menus.

He orders a pile of carbohydrates off the first menu he finds.

“What are you doing?” Kara asks from the couch. “Lee? Lee? Zak, what are you doing?”

“Gotta sober up, gotta get you packed,” Lee tells her. He wonders if hearing his brother’s name will ever not sting. If Kara will call him Zak in bed someday. If they’ll fight about it when she does.

Kara puts down her drink and scrunches her face. “Gotta fly.”

“Yeah,” Lee agrees. “What are you taking with you?”

“Clothes,” Kara answers vaguely. “Stuff. Gotta take stuff.”

Lee finds her duffel bag lying on her bed, her dress grays folded neatly next to it. He puts them in the bag and then tracks down her duty blues in a pile of clean laundry. He also finds several pairs of fatigues and a fancy blue party dress that he tucks into her luggage just to frak with her.

Kara wanders into her bedroom. “What are you doing?”

“Packing,” Lee tells her. “Where do you keep your tanks and underwear?”

Kara goes over to her dresser while Lee heads into the bathroom to find toothpaste and toiletries.

It’s impossible, packing these things for someone he barely knows. Finally Lee just dumps everything in Kara’s cabinets into a bag and tucks that into her duffel.

Kara is sitting on her bed, watching him intently.

“We should get rings, you think?” Lee asks her warily. It’s too soon, maybe, but she’s leaving tomorrow and he wants them to be bonded in something besides grief.

“Tattoos!” Kara is suddenly bright with enthusiasm.

If he were sober, Lee knows that he would know better. But he’s not sober. He’s married and drunk and sad and elated all at once and tattoos sound like a perfect permanent solution.

“Tattoos,” Lee agrees.

They leave the apartment in a flurry of drunken enthusiasm.

“There’s a, just down the,” Kara gestures wildly and then grabs Lee by the arm and tugs him after her, two blocks in one direction and then turning around and going another three blocks past her apartment in the opposite direction before they find the tattoo parlor. 

The heavily tattooed Tauronese artists obviously know Kara. 

“Bona Fiscalia!” they greet her, pronouncing the ancient Kobolian words on the inside of her right forearm. “What can we do for you?”

“My hus-” Kara falters over the term and Lee isn’t sure if that’s because it’s painful or because she’s drunk “-friend and I need tattoos.”

“For you? Anything.”

Kara pours over the sample books for a long time before bringing one over to show Lee. She looks proud of herself as she points at one of the old Aerilonian characters. 

“This one,” she says. “It means ‘choice.’”

“But Kara,” Lee says slowly, “we didn’t have a choice.”

“Everything is a choice,” she tells him impatiently. Lee thinks she’s starting to sober up.

“Okay,” Lee agrees. With her. To the tattoo. To their whole lives together. It feels more binding than the vows he said in a temple four hours ago.

“Here,” Kara points to the nape of her neck under her hair. “On both of us.”

It will be impossible for Lee to hide a tattoo there, but he finds he doesn’t much want to.

Lee sobers up with every pass of the buzzing needle into his skin. By the time the tattoo is done he feels more sober, more guilty than he ever has in his entire life.

Kara takes one look at him and says, “Don’t, Adama.”

He splutters at her as he pays for their tattoos, their _wedding bands_.

“It’s done, Lee,” Kara says firmly. “Now we have to live with it.”

She’s talking about more then just the tattoos. About more than the law that requires a single man to marry his brother’s childless widow. She’s talking about the choices they’ve been denying making and the boundaries they keep smashing down.

“I should go home,” Lee tells Kara. He can’t quite look her in the eye.

“We’re married.” Kara tells him. “And you promised me dinner.”

“Dinner! Frak!” Lee remembers placing the order, but they’d taken off for the tattoo parlor before the food had arrived.

There’s a late-night Tauronese restaurant around the corner from Kara’s apartment, so for the second time that night Lee orders takeout. This time he sticks around long enough to pay for it, pick it up, and take it back to the apartment.

Kara opens a couple of ales and lights a candle as Lee unpacks the food.

“Happy Maritaticum,” she says emotionlessly.

“Happy Maritaticum,” Lee repeats.

They eat quietly. By the time they’re done it has gotten late and Kara invites Lee to stay and share her bed.

Lee lies stiffly on the left side of the bed while Kara tosses and turns on the right.

*

Lee awakens to a throbbing headache and burning sensation on the back of his neck and it takes a few moments before he remembers the night before. Marrying Kara and drinking heavily and his wedding tattoo.

He opens his eyes slowly, warily, but Kara isn’t lying next to him. Her duffel isn’t where they left it.

Disappointment floods Lee’s body. Kara is gone, left for a year-long tour of duty without saying a word to him.

He climbs out of bed and stumbles to Kara’s bathroom. 

It’s empty but for a damp towel and Zak’s ring, discarded on the counter top. Lee isn’t sure what he is supposed to make of that.


End file.
